Top Principal Software Engineer Jobs in Chicago, IL

Lead design and reliability of a financial data extraction platform, minimizing human validation through AI, and enhance system correctness for scale.

Lead design and delivery of scalable, secure full-stack systems; mentor engineers; integrate AI-driven and agent-based workflows; ensure cloud-native, containerized deployments and secure SDLC practices.

Lead a systems infrastructure engineering team managing Linux (RHEL/CentOS) and Windows servers, VMware vSphere, automation (PowerShell, Python, Ansible), enforce cybersecurity compliance (SCAP/STIG/Nessus), maintain configuration management (Team Center Enterprise), follow Agile processes, and travel ~25%. Requires active Secret clearance.

Lead design and implementation of highly scalable, secure backend services and APIs. Define architecture for databases and microservices, own projects end-to-end, resolve reliability/performance issues, improve CI/CD and observability, mentor engineers, and align technical strategy with product and security requirements.

The Principal Software Engineer will lead the development of Node-based applications, ensuring alignment with business goals and mentoring engineers. Responsibilities include designing scalable systems, managing product requirements, and utilizing AI tools for software development.

Design and develop web applications, mentor teammates, shape architectural decisions, write clean code, conduct testing, and troubleshoot issues.

The Principal Software Engineer leads the design and development of scalable software solutions, mentors engineers, and drives architectural decisions while collaborating with cross-functional teams.

Define next-generation graphics and compute capabilities for Direct3D and HLSL. Collaborate with GPU vendors and industry groups, influence standards, design and ship new features, and analyze and optimize workloads across modern GPU architectures.

Lead design and implementation of large-scale Pub/Sub and messaging services within Azure Event Grid/Microsoft Fabric. Define scalable, reliable architectures, drive testing and CI/CD automation, build developer tooling, mentor engineers, manage incident response and operational excellence, and collaborate with PMs, EMs, researchers, and customers to deliver production-ready cloud services.

Lead QA for a high-value billing platform: build agentic/AI-driven test tooling, validate streaming and batch billing logic, automate CI/CD testing, support revenue forecasting and cross-functional billing coverage.

The role involves leading initiatives for vector search in Elasticsearch, enhancing features, resolving bugs, and contributing to community engagements in a distributed team setting. A strong background in vector similarity and Java is crucial.

The Principal Software Engineer will lead the design and build-out of an AI Context Layer, ensuring high-quality data for AI systems, while managing access control and developer interfaces, and leading cross-team projects.

Design, implement, and maintain high-quality, highly available microservices for Azure Messaging and Fabric. Drive AI adoption to improve development practices, optimize system IO and performance, and lead innovation in product and engineering processes while following rigorous development and security screening practices.

Lead technical vision and architecture for Dockers Developer Tools: build a self-service internal platform, CI/CD and build systems, integrate AI/LLM agents, set SDLC tenets, establish standards for observability, security, reliability, and productize internal tooling into customer offerings.

Lead technical direction for a major product domain, reduce architectural debt, mentor engineers, standardize AI-agent workflows, and design scalable backend solutions integrating LLMs and cloud services. Drive cross-team RFCs, cookbook standards, and adopt agentic AI tooling while balancing security, quality, and delivery.

Lead platform strategy, architecture, and hands-on development. Design, build, deploy, and operate high-performance, fault-tolerant integrations and platform enhancements. Drive security/compliance, mentor engineers, recruit senior talent, align technology with business goals, and communicate technical vision to stakeholders.

Design and implement scalable full-stack solutions for institutional platforms. Lead API and microservices design, cloud (AWS) deployments, CI/CD and DevSecOps, collaborate with product and QA, troubleshoot production, and mentor distributed teams.

Design, architect, and build enterprise Java microservices and APIs; lead technical delivery, mentor engineers, implement cloud-native and CI/CD practices, design database schemas and PL/SQL, and develop blockchain/digital-asset solutions including smart contract work and lifecycle integration in financial services.

Lead end-to-end design, development, and quality of cloud-based enterprise software solutions for caregivers. Define quality criteria, estimate costs, manage risks and engineering processes, integrate systems, and act as technical leader across large, complex projects.

Lead architecture and development of large-scale VM management and monitoring platforms for Azure. Provide technical leadership, design documentation, debugging, performance tuning, operational excellence, mentoring, on-call monitoring, and adoption of AI-assisted workflows to improve reliability, availability, security, and observability across Windows and Linux environments.

Drive architecture and technical vision for Elasticsearch core storage and query engine. Lead performance and storage-efficiency improvements, design indexing/serialization/data layouts, mentor engineers, coordinate cross-organizational initiatives, triage community issues, and write idiomatic modern Java for logs and metrics workloads.

Lead frontend technical direction for the Trellis design system: design and build a production component library, define accessibility and theming models, create tooling and migration pipelines (codemods, refactoring automation), leverage AI coding agents, mentor senior engineers, and partner with PM/UX to drive frontend architecture and adoption across product teams.

The Principal Software Engineer leads a team to develop full-stack real-time applications, integrates machine learning models, and influences software architecture in cloud environments while supporting healthcare analytics.

Lead architecture, modernization, and development of Group Insurance applications. Modernize mainframe monoliths into Java microservices and micro-frontends on cloud, mentor distributed Agile teams, collaborate with enterprise architecture, product owners and infrastructure, and enable test automation and integrations. Approximately 10% domestic travel.

Define frontend technical strategy and standards across the org, establish data layer and state management best practices, collaborate with AI Developer Experience on AI-assisted frontend tooling, embed with teams to write code (~50% time), drive platform-level operational excellence, influence executive strategy, and mentor engineers to raise frontend architecture and developer experience.